Getaways, runaways
by Inkfire
Summary: Adrift in London, Mels runs into another peculiar girl with a wandering soul. Mels/Clara one-shot, because exploration is nice…


**And here is the last one of those old fics I wrote ages ago and had never gotten around to posting! *cheers* Mels/Clara, just because I wanted to. This happened during my River/Clara phase, it was just very tempting to me, but hard to fit in their timelines and then I thought about Mels. Hence this experiment =) Enjoy!**

* * *

She breathes the London air like decadent elixir.

The Leadworth girls and boys, set loose in the big town. There is euphoria on every face, a flight to freedom that leaves them all gleeful, an excitement maddened by the buzz of the capital.

Amy and Rory just won't stop kissing.

On the bus, Mels cackled and jeered and tossed stolen toffees at them, restless and quite smug to see that they had gotten the hint, at last. Going _somewhere_—even with a classful of mostly-or-almost-all morons, and the forlorn goal of the museum in mind—made her skin tingle, her fingers twitch and her heart pump hard with excitement. But now that she stands on the street, that the rhythm of the city resonates in her bones, adolescent kissing does not seem quite so cute any longer, and the very notion of meekly following makes her want to snort out loud.

No way.

"Amy," she says. "I'm gonna need a distraction."

A ten-second beat. "Sorry, what?" Amy ends up saying, a bit flushed and shaking her flowing red hair.

Mels scowls. "Nothing, sunshine. I'll manage."

If her parents don't need her, she doesn't need them and that would be nothing new, she reasons with purposeful harshness as she strides faster, far ahead of the pair. She thinks she might have heard Amy sigh, but she doesn't want to pay attention. She brought them together; she doesn't owe it to them to stick around and watch the consequences of her victory, be the third wheel, come at the wrong time, out of sync. She made herself happen, she likes to think, but the specifics of the process are of little interest after all.

Harshness is easier, raw and sharp and cruel and liberating. Just like life in some ways, she ponders.

The teachers have an eye on her, she notes with annoyance and no surprise. Time to get to business. If they expect a show, then that is exactly what Mels Zucker is going to give them.

To be fair, there is more cockiness than truth in that statement, as Mels doesn't feel particularly inclined to make of a show of herself at the moment. All she's longing for is to slip from those school ranks unnoticed and go get herself a real taste of the town. She mingles between classmates, head ducked and mind keenly aware. A distraction indeed is what she needs, and she's watching, listening, _feeling_ for it—that booming honk, that shriek of tyres from a car going just a bit too fast—loud, careless classmates ahead of her, not enough to get hurt, but _close—_

Quite close; a teacher actually gasps in alarm, two others rush up to the group, full of admonitions and demands that everybody pay closer attention in the crowded streets. The rest of the class moves in clusters, some noisily wondering what's going on, some taking advantage of the occasion to linger before the shop fronts. Confusion everywhere.

Mels smirks. It's almost too easy.

She's fast, pretty fast, ducking between passer-bys. She doesn't take the time for more than a glance behind; her eye catches Rory's for a split second, she sees his mouth twist into a scowl.

Then she's off, disappeared.

* * *

By evening she ends up in an abandoned playground, swaying gently on the swing as she clutches the chain with white knuckles.

She should have made it back to the bus—she was on time, plenty of time. She just didn't feel like it, at all. Didn't want to face the teachers and sit through their irate lectures, some of them glaring and hostile, some of them helpless and making a last feeble attempt to get through to her. Didn't want to hear her classmates cackle and ask with fake shock what she'd been up to, even though the fools knew better than to push her too much. Didn't want to face Amy and Rory, should they show interest for her latest getaway, or just dismiss it, as nothing but another part of their stupid teenage routine.

Mad Mels running loose. Nothing strange with that.

The town let her down. Packed, busy life is roaring all around her, yet after a few hours of roaming about she stopped feeling part of it. Detached, she walked aimlessly, on and on, always forward until she just slumped here and went still. Motion is limited to the most minor fidgeting, a rare occurrence that many of her acquaintances might find bewildering—they wouldn't know any better, surely. It does happen. The sky above her falls into dismal shades of darkness and the silence grips her, more and more. Cars horn and children yell in the distance, but it cannot measure up to the hollow ringing in her ears.

For one second she thinks about the Doctor, and a hot rush of hatred flows through her—for _he _is _out there _and she is here, he is alive, breathing, two hearts strongly beating. He must feel grand, striding around, knowing nothing of vacuity, of living like a machine, the stifling smallness of everyday things that makes her want to scream. Then the tide recedes. She remains bored and cold, adrift in London.

"Oh, hi."

She looks up. There is, a few feet from her, a smallish girl about her age with a satchel, gazing straight at her with a raised eyebrow. "Sorry," the girl says, "I just came to get this."

A stuffed toy lies on the ground by her feet, face down, abandoned and forlorn. She nudges it with a boot. The girl bends and swiftly picks it up.

"Bit old for that, aren't you?" she says just for the sake of it, though teasing a stranger is a rather poor attempt at fun. Still—she clutches what she can, clinging by fingertips.

"Bit old for swings, uh?" The girl smiles a small and sharp smile, with a twinkle in her eye that says _Don't play clever_. She waves the toy lightly. "Well, I'll have you know that this is actually my charge. The king's adopted child, lost in a tragic accident earlier today. Thank goodness I was passing by and could rescue him from the armies of spiders and blood-thirsty dogs that might have threatened His Highness."

Mels snorts, but straightens up from her slumped position. "And you've what, saved him from danger now?"

"Yep. And I'll deliver him to the king's house safely and get a bit of royal gratitude before I can get home."

"The _purrrfect _nanny." She drawls out each word.

"You got that right."

The girl smiles at her again and dances a few steps away. Not turning her back—not asking questions, either. Those are things people always do, stray things out of a long list. People and their bewildering banality, bland silhouettes without a spark. This girl grips a panda toy tightly in her hand and her hair swings gently in the breeze as she looks straight at Mels, simply _looks_.

"What's your name?" she calls and the girl smiles again.

"Clara." And with that, she turns lightly on her heel and skips away.

Mels slips from the swing. In a few heartbeats—the rhythm of her steps, the buzzing of instinct—she follows after the girl.

Who glances back and quirks an eyebrow, eyes twinkling.

* * *

"I don't just take stray girls home," she announces on the bus, with a small smile that Mels deems secretly smug.

"Oh, is this an exception, then?" she shoots back. Clara shrugs.

"If you want to come, you come," she clarifies. She lowers her voice to a whisper as she adds: "But I think _you _are the exception in that. People don't really do what they want to, usually. Not when it's… unusual things."

She snickers. Mad Mels. "Too scared of what others would think."

"Partly that, yeah." Clara pushes her satchel higher up on her lap. She sits, Mels stands. Observes her, too—a delicate thing, small and pretty, who somehow manages a pensive stillness without appearing bored or boring or restrained. The panda returned to its royal owner, her hands are empty around the bag's leather strap. Tiny hands—a finger, just one, twitches in slight restlessness.

"What's _your_ name?" Clara asks and she says: "Melody," three suspended syllables. Then as the bus pulls to a stop, she promptly adds her usual correction: "Mels."

Clara smiles, again. Usually, individuals who smile too often rather infuriate her. However, this girl's small grins seem light and genuine and she is rather partial to the way her lips twist, ever so slightly parting at the middle.

Clara rises and walks past her, out into the street. Mels quietly follows.

London tastes differently here, the air that of a home and not a crazed, enticing metropolis. Clara fumbles in her satchel for a key, clicks her tongue when she eventually finds it, pushes a heavy door. "My parents are away for a few days," she says in the staircase. "You can just stay for a chat and a drink, or else I have a sleeping bag if you'd rather leave tomorrow."

Mels stops. "Did you tell me to come because you thought I had nowhere to go?"

"The streets are full of desperate people if I wanted to pick up one," Clara answers without turning. She stops before her door, opens it as she carries on: "You just seemed lost, but it's not my business to get you found. I was just curious where you'd come from."

She turns back and raises an eyebrow.

Mels walks in.

* * *

In lieu of a drink, Mels quietly roams through the apartment for a little while, picking up Clara's things, while the latter coolly watches, sipping coffee from a big blue cup. There are photos that speak of happiness, books and maps that murmur of wanderlust. Two parents, old childhood toys, no diary in sight. She pokes the computer's mouse before turning back.

"Done yet?" Clara asks, and she retorts: "Nope," but still collapses onto her bed.

Cup abandoned on the bedside table, Clara comes to perch at her side. "You not from London?"

"How do you know?"

A shrug. "You didn't look local. A bit like the city had you spat you there and you cared for nothing around you."

"I come from a stupid town at the far end of nowhere," she replies—neither comment nor confirmation, just a fact she drops carelessly.

Clara grins. "Do you want to get out?" she whispers like it's a secret.

"Always have, for as long as I can remember."

"Where would you like to go?"

"Nowhere. Anywhere. Everywhere."

Clara is laughing and nodding nervously, now. Her hair flutters across her cheeks, partly concealing her. Mels pushes it back.

"You get it," Clara says. "Somehow, I thought you would."

"People usually tell me that, yeah," and Clara laughs more. The crinkles of her hilarity on her little doll face leave a tugging in Mels' stomach. She likes that laughter. She wants more.

"Where would you start?" Clara questions, once sobered.

"London."

"That was a failure." They find themselves speaking the words in unison. Once again they laugh, and once again Clara's hair flutters, a call for her fingers.

Call heeded. Clara shifts and fingertips meet cheek, then fall away. Mels sits up.

"China," Clara decides. She snorts.

"Yeah, fun place to get started."

"Argentina. Canada."

"I'd rather a dot of rock in the middle of a sea."

"Antarctica."

"The universe. The stars."

Clara chortles. "Well, _that _certainly won't be happening yet."

She doesn't argue on that. She leans forward instead, and kisses the girl.

There is a muffled sound of surprise; but her lips are soft as she'd always known they'd be, and she meets no resistance as she nibbles and nips at them. The curtains of hair tickle her cheeks, framing them together as would a light, sweet-smelling veil. Mels tastes her and feels her own quick heartbeats, a sharply-paced thrumming that urges her onwards.

She draws back and Clara stares with glowing eyes. "The hell was that?"

She grins. "Well, I wanted to. And if I may add, I could hear no complaints."

Clara leans forward and catches her mouth again.

They curl closer to one another, Clara's fingers rising to comb through Mels' hair in turn, lightly touching her cheeks for a second—brushing, ghosting there. Mels' arm finds the girl's waist and clings. She feels soft, sweet, something calming like a lost-and-found treasure. She makes one want to settle against her silken skin, and taste it, and rest there. The journey and the home.

Mostly it's just a very, very cute girl and Mels has a fanciful mind and itching hands. She indulges both.

Clara's bed is small, small indeed for two. They first recline into a horizontal position, all busy mouths and tangle of limbs, then they crawl beneath the covers. They peel off clothes like a children's game, innocent, almost.

Mels has never been very innocent. Clara's laugh tinkles in the darkness.

She's never done that before. Mad Mels, daring Mels, the Leadworth kids think she's done it all. Long ago, a few spread filthy rumours about her and Amy, for they had a phase of hugging too often and wandering around holding hands, glaring at the world with a lost, bored eye. Mels made sure they wouldn't talk about them again. She remembers lashing out, Amy's horror, and almost getting into real, proper trouble. She remembers no one understood why, of all the things ever said about her, this one kindled the flame.

Never at the right place. Always wrong, always weird, always arousing whispers.

"I'm going somewhere," she says against Clara's neck. "I've always been. One day, I'll find the right thing or place or time and I'll be all right. I'll get my place. My purpose."

Clara squirms. "Well, I hope you enjoy the journey. I don't know where we ever land." Her voice is breathy and she doesn't tell her to shut the hell up, that now is not the time. She _gets_ it. "I want to do something. To be something."

"You already are. Cause you're not anyone. Everyone is anyone. Not you." She glances up. "Clara. Wait. Name?"

"Oswald. You are not making a declaration of love, are you? Absolutely not, right?"

Mels chortles. "Oh, _please_."

"I'd get it, mind. I fall in love a lot. Been falling all my life." She grabs her face and holds it like it's an object, peering into it and frowning. "Melody. Princess name, that."

"I'm not a princess," she fiercely clarifies. "I'm a rebel. Or a queen. Or a runaway. Or a criminal." She bares her teeth as she laughs.

"Blimey, that's a lot of things. Just checking, are you also someone who occasionally shuts up?"

She chuckles and nods, and it's a lie. She never is quite silent. Makes sure Clara isn't, either.

After the itching is sated and they want to rest rather than run, they lie together under the covers, huddled like kids having a cuddle, except for their bare skins. Holding each other feels sweet and safe, for some reason. A touch more than sex usually feels, an extra something added to the rush: nothing ever feels very safe to Mels, usually. Others are anchored but she doesn't stand in place, torn and rootless, a bird without a nest; she is the overflow, roaring and crashing, yet she ought to crash _somewhere_ and every river is racing down to the sea. She just hovers; here with Clara she pauses, opens her eyes wide, and, in slower touches and words she doesn't voice, tells a story. One lost in a blur, no ending, no beginning. A story nonetheless.

Errant girls, they roam each other's skin.

Mels wanders in dreams, and might just come home somehow, except she won't remember a thing of it in the morning.

* * *

"You'll catch a bus, yeah? Wherever it is you're going."

"Sure. Won't be coming back to haunt your doorstep, no worries. Just run off to class."

She drawls the last word with utter contempt. She steals a quick kiss and adds to it her most charming grin.

"You know, I've got a question. The stupid question, the one you'll always feel embarrassed to ask because you really have the answer already. Will I see you again?"

Mels half-turns. She smiles so she won't cry, because Mels never cries. "Why do you ask if you already know?"

"I don't know, you slept at my place. That was nice of me to let you, you could just be polite, in return. Or something. Reasons. I never thought you'd answer, really."

"That's because you get it."

She smiles wider yet, until it hurts her cheeks. Clara raises an eyebrow, managing a tiny smirk in return.

"Well, this is it, then. Farewell, wild country girl."

"See you, London girl."

"I hope you travel the world," Clara adds, quieter. "I hope you can catch that dream, and just be amazing. But you can. It's written on your face."

Mels laughs. "Thanks. Likewise—at some point, just ditch the kids, the school and start running."

"I will. A hundred and one places to see, that's what I've got." She brushes the shining wooden surface of an old table with a fingertip. "And I'll still remember what I'll be coming home to."

"Good for you." Mels skips away, two steps. The door is so close. Clara's nails drum an edgy rhythm.

"Surely you'll come back, at some point. This is London after all." She says it plainly, like an obvious thing.

"Maybe."

"Mels?"

She pauses, again. "Yeah?"

"You are so, so right. Run. But find something worth hanging on to, as well. Don't just forget."

She thinks of Amy, and Rory, of the yearning to slip in so close to them, and the urge to flee them and their unknowing eyes. She thinks of stupid Leadworth with the stupid house and the stupid pond. She remembers how it felt to die—the pain first, the sharp jab of fear, then the high of being reborn. Invincible, brand new.

She hovers, loose and unconnected, in the doorway. "Whatever you say."

_We can be the errant girls. We can roam and roam and never have a purpose. Except you've got a home._

This time, she turns her back. Crosses the door, crosses the street. Brakes shriek as a car spins aside to avoid her.

She lied, there is no bus. Idly, she looks for a vehicle to steal.

Maybe a motorcycle. Love a motorcycle.


End file.
